1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to the field of image sharing. Particularly, aspects of this invention pertain to image sharing based upon faces in an image.
2. General Background and Related Art
People love to share photos. Since we entered the new age of digital photos, sharing has become even more popular. Digital photos are made either with a digital camera or by scanning photos made by a traditional film camera. They are shared in various formats (e.g. Joint Photographic Experts Group format (JPEG), bitmap format (BMP), etc.). Digital photos are now sent as e-mail attachments, posted on Web sites, shared over instant messaging networks and on and on.
Sharing digital photos by e-mail is relatively simple. Most e-mail software applications provide the means to attach or embed digital photo files into an e-mail for display and/or saving by the recipient. The sender then simply sends the e-mail including the digital photo(s) to one or more desired recipients. In many circumstances, senders may establish one or more groups of recipients, e.g. members of a family or acquaintances and send a digital photo via e-mail to the group by identifying the group in the address of the e-mail. Sending such digital photo files by instant messaging networks is also easy since most, if not all, instant messaging software provides for sending and receiving computer files including digital photo files. As with e-mail, the sender identifies one or more recipients and sends the digital photo files to them. A sender can also identify a group of recipients.
Sharing digital photos through the Web can often be more complicated and involve interesting variations. In a typical scenario, the one or more digital photos are uploaded/downloaded to a Web site server by a user. The digital photos are integrated into the Web site and made available through the Web site server for browsing/downloading. These Web sites offer varying levels of security and control over who may add, delete, view and access the digital photos. Further, the user can configure the presentation of the one or more digital photos such as by enhancing (with, for example, captions or decorative backgrounds), laying out and categorizing the digital photos.
Many such Web sites also offer a user the ability to send an e-mail to one or more recipients containing a hyperlink to the one or more digital photos to be shared with those recipients. By clicking on the hyperlink in most conventional e-mail software applications, a recipient can be quickly directed to all or some of the digital photos on the Web site through the recipient's browser. In some cases, the recipient may need to provide authorization information to gain access to the digital photo(s) because the user may not wish to provide open access or wants to selectively present different digital photos to different users. Another variation on this theme involves sending not a link but the actual digital photo itself to the one or more recipients. In this manner, the user does not need to attach or embed the digital photo into an e-mail. The user simply needs to identify recipients (and typically their e-mail addresses) to the Web site and the Web site software generates and sends e-mails including the digital photo(s) to the intended recipients.
People also often enjoy sharing videos such as videos of the family trip or a newborn. As with digital still photos, sharing is particularly evident in the new age of digital videos whether these videos are made by traditional video cameras and then converted into digital videos or made with a digital video camera, and irrespective of the format (MPEG, AVI, etc.) of these digital videos. As with digital photos, digital videos are now sent as e-mail attachments, posted on Web sites whether for discrete download or for streaming, shared over instant messaging networks and on and on.
However, other than simply e-mailing or instant messaging digital photos/videos or links to digital photos/videos on a Web site to recipients whether individually or to one or more groups of recipients, there have not been many, if any, new and different sharing schemes for digital photos/videos. Indeed, past sharing schemes have suffered from being time consuming and awkward when manually selecting and sharing sometimes large collections of digital photos/videos.
In a system provided by ImageID Ltd., a person is issued an identification badge that the person wears. The system's software can then identify the badge in a photo of the person (assuming of course the photo shows the badge) and correspond that photo to the owner of the badge. The system then solely makes the photo available on a Web site for the identified badge owner to view and/or download. This system suffers a number of disadvantages including the need for the badge to show in the photo and the failure of the system to provide a means for sharing photos with others.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved, more automated solution to sharing images such as digital photos and/or videos. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method and system for image sharing based upon faces in an image.